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Bon Voyage (Cassette Memories Volume Two)

by Aki Onda

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Bon Voyage (Cassette Memories Volume Two)
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    THIS IS THE ORIGINAL CD RELEASED IN 2003. SIGNED BY THE ARTIST! ONLY A FEW COPIES LEFT!

    Limited Edition 1000 copies (sold out at the other stores). Special gatefold paper jacket printed in Japan.

    Joel Hanson of Resonance wrote "The latest diary of sound from self-proclaimed nomad Aki Onda is a collection of field recordings spanning 14 years of world travel. Forged from the sounds of everyday life, captured on cassette recorder and layered, Onda's "songs" are divorced from any specific moment in time but nevertheless contain and eerily familiar quality, like a protracted instance of deja vu. Birds sing to each other from treetops. Rain splatters rhythmically on a city sidewalk. Undeground trains roar angrily over their tracks. A seaside breeze swallows the fragile lament of a Moroccan child. Percussionists hammer Brazilian bongo beats while the listener paints mental pictures from a palette of unexpected memories. On "I'll Be Your Mirror" and "Goodbye," Onda mixes wind, water, and machines to create, as Onda himself writes, "a lucid moment when scenes witnessed before, sounds heard before, all seem to flash back in a single spectacle." There's room to roam in this music, as well as an opportunity for the seasoned traveler to rediscover the joy of feeling utterly lost in a foreign land."

    Includes unlimited streaming of Bon Voyage (Cassette Memories Volume Two) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.     ... more

    Sold Out
1.
For The Birds 08:35
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2.
Rain 06:22
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3.
Night 04:28
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4.
Underground 03:12
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5.
The Little Girl From Tangier 04:48
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6.
I'll Be Your Mirror 06:46
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7.
Good​-​Bye 10:15
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about

This album was originally released by Improvised Music from Japan in 2003 and digitally re-issued by Lawrence English's Room 40 in 2020.

On Cassette Memories - Lawrence English
I first heard Aki Onda’s work in the early 00s. It was first introduced to me by my friend DJ Olive who was involved in the Phenomena Audio Arts and Multiples label alongside Toshio Kajiwara. Ancient And Modern, the first in the series of Cassette Memories works, was a dynamic, playful collection of textured recordings. Onda crafted a series of pieces that launched off from a kind of devolved musique concréte, seeking to dwell on the materialist structures of the sounds he encountered and the medium through which he encountered them. Moreover Ancient and Modern set out the framework for how subsequent volumes would evolve and specifically how he would seek to mediate the relation between sound, tape and memory.

That same year, Bon Voyage! arrived on the excellent Improvised Music From Japan label (which to this day was responsible for some of the most challenging and rewarding music emanating from Japan at the beginning of the new century). In contrast to Ancient and Modern, this edition sought to allow the recordings to ’speak for themselves’. The field recordings gathered unfolded with a sense of intention and at times provocation, prompting the listener to forgo expectation in favour of being present to the moment (and the medium).

South Of The Border, the third volume in the series arrived in 2012 and again refined the focus of the project. This time Onda selected work that was threaded together by geography, place and situation.

Across these volumes, Aki Onda has charted what is now a significant body of sound. Sitting within a conceptual field that is bordered by Musique Concréte, field recording, experimental sound practices and listening more broadly, the Cassette Memories series is without question one of Onda’s most important statements. It is made available here in conjunction with the publication of a book that includes a series of new texts and images that outline the approaches and concepts guiding the work.

credits

released February 14, 2020

Composed by Aki Onda
Cassette recordings made in New York, Rio De Janeiro, Salvador, Tokyo, Paris, Tangier, Valencia, Lisbon, London... between 1988 and 2002
Edited at the Bregman Electro-Acoustic Music Studio, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
Re-mastered by Lawrence English
Artwork by Aki Onda
Originally released by Improvised Music From Japan in 2003
Thanks to Jon Appleton

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Aki Onda Mito, Japan

Aki Onda is an artist and composer. His musical and visual works are often catalyzed by and structured around memories—personal, collective, historical—such as his widely-known project "Cassette Memories", drawn from three decades of field recordings (or, as Onda refers to them, ‘sound diaries’). After residing in New York for many years, he currently lives and works in Mito, Japan. ... more

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